Randall Jarrell

The Olive Garden - Poem by Randall Jarrell

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(Rainer Maria Rilke)

He went up under the gray leavesAll gray and lost in the olive landsAnd laid his forehead, gray with dust,Deep in the dustiness of his hot hands.After everything this. And this was the end.-- Now I must go, as I am going blind.And why is it Thy will that I must sayThou art, when I myself no more can find Thee.I find Thee no more. Not in me, no.Not in others. Not in this stone,I find Thee no more. I am alone.I am alone with all men's sorrow --All that, through Thee, I thought to lighten,Thou who art not, O nameless shame ...Men said, later: an angel came.Why an angel? Alas, there came the night,And leafed through the trees, indifferently.The disciples moved a little in their dreams.Why an angel? Alas, there came the night.The night that came was no uncommon night:So hundreds of nights go by.There dogs sleep; there stones lie,Alas a sorrowful, alas any nightThat waits till once more it is morning.For then beseech: the angels do not come,Never do nights grow great around them.Who lose themselves, all things let go;They are renounced by their own fathersAnd shut from their own mothers' hearts.